One Thousand and One Nights

The sea as a symbol of the supernatural world is pervasive throughout Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. Much like the supernatural world, it serves as a backdrop for many of the tales in the collection. It produces marvelous things like jinnees in bottles, donkeys, apes, islands atop whales, and massive serpents—throwing both obstacles and opportunities in the paths of characters such as Sindbad and Khalifa the Fisherman. Many of the characters, especially Sindbad, are at the mercy of the seas in the same way that all of the characters in the collection are often at the mercy of the supernatural world, particularly jinnees and jinniyahs. Nevertheless, the supernatural, especially in the form of the sea, allows characters such as Sindbad to travel the wide world, make a living, and encounter delightful marvels. It is therefore both feared and revered.

The Abbasid cities of Baghdad and Basra are the settings for many of the tales in this compendium, and they symbolize the diversity and richness of Abbasid society and the medieval Islamic world at large. The city of Baghdad is touted as the City of Peace and, pranks and prejudices aside, its Christian, Jewish, and Muslim residents seem to reside alongside one another in peace.